Fake It Till You Make It: Militar y Pr ofessionalization Amongst Resistance Movements in Nazi-Occupied Eur ope

Ethan Lee

Intr oduction

T he memor y of resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe has often been characterized by imag es of rag-tag par tisans fighting for liberation ag ainst a g enocidal occupying power.1 While this imag er y is accurate in cer tain respects, such nar ratives can limit our understanding of why some resistance movements of the period decided to underg o extensive militar y professionalization, along with the militar y and political consequences that these chang es entailed.2 T here are notable examples of entities with aspirations for statehood underg oing militar y professionalization throughout the Second World War, par ticularly in the context of the Balkans and Wester n Europe 3

For the pur poses of this paper, the ter m “militar y professionalization” is best understood as the larg e-scale imposition of a unique collective identity along with the

1 “Resistance is habitually equated with actual combat, evoking the imag e of the par tisan fighters in the maquis… and the street fighters at the bar ricades during the Liberation ” Paula Schwar tz, “Redefining Resistance: Women’s Activism in War time France” in Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars, eds Marg aret Hig onnet, Sonya Michel, and Jane Jenson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 143. For recent examples of resistance in Nor th American popular media, see Sledg ehammer Games, Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021); Allied, directed by Rober t Zemeckis (Paramount Pictures, 2016); Inglorious Basterds, directed by Quentin Tarantino (T he Weinstein Company, 2009).

2 See Peter Burke, “A New Paradigm” in W hat is Cultural Histor y?, 2nd ed (Cambridg e and Malden: Polity, 2008), 67-72

3 For more context on politics and resistance in Europe during occupation, see Gordon Wright, “Ger man Rule in Occupied Europe” and “Europe’s Response to Conquest: T he Resistance Movements” in The Ordeal of Total War, 1939-1945 (New York: Har per & Row, 1968), 107-166 existence and maintenance of resistance-specific exper tise in an ar med g roup 4 Attempts by resistance movements to underg o for ms of militar y professionalization should not be nar rowly conce ptualized as a militar y strateg y aimed at improving combat effectiveness. Instead, militar y professionalization should also be understood as an impor tant characteristic of resistance movements vying to utilize the benefits of political legitimacy during war time and in anticipation of establishing postwar g over nance.

T his paper is org anized into five par ts. After this introduction, section two examines relevant literature in political science and sociolog y, outlining and deriving two conce pts of militar y professionalization in ar med g roups

T he first conce pt is based on militar y strateg y, and the second is premised on political relations, i.e resistance g roups’ relations with local communities and org anizational behavior Sections three and four are comprised of historical case studies on resistance in Yug oslavia and France, highlighting the strengths of the political relations explanation and the more limited applicability of militar y strateg y. I end the paper with a conclusion and a quick over view.

R elevant Academic Litera ture and Explana tions for Militar y Pr ofessionaliza tion

Academic discourse concer ning civil-militar y relations—which encompasses the topic of militar y professionalization—is almost always framed in the context of nation-states,

4 Tommy Ross, “Reconceptualizing Militar y Professionalization,” Center for Strategic and Inter national Studies (2018), https://www csis org/analysis/reconceptualizing-militar y -professionalization with foundational works in the field being for med in capitalist militaries’ transitions to all-volunteer forces.5 Despite this backg round, professionalization—the social process by which occupations become publicly recognized as a profession—has been recognized as not being de pendent on the existence of a traditional nation-state, albeit with the caveats of altered responsibilities between individual combatants and clients as well as the different types of skill sets called into question.6 Scholarship on professionalization is larg ely premised on the conce pt of the professional, i.e members employed in fields requiring distinct types of training, knowledg e, and skills 7 In other words, militar y professionalism and professionalization should be framed as the adoption of professional attributes by individuals eng ag ed in militar y activities, characterized by the constr uction of a collective identity facilitated through consistent

5 Samuel P Huntington, “Officership as a Profession” in The Soldier and the State: The Theor y and Politics of Civil-Militar y Relations (London: Har vard University Press, 1957), 8-19; Mor ris Janowitz, “Professionals in Violence” in The Pr ofessional Soldier : A Social and Political Portrait (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961), 3-20

6 Patrick Finneg an, “Professionalization of a Nonstate Actor : A Case Study of the Provisional IRA,” Ar med Forces & Society 45 2 (2019), 354; Eric A Nordling er, Soldiers in Politics: Militar y Coups and Gover nments (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1977), 47 With reg ards to nonstate actors, the responsibility to a client (with the client traditionally being the g over nment) can be understood as combatants’ oblig ations to receive orders from the g roup’s command str ucture and/or the local populace, as Nordling er asser ts that responsibility to a client is of “near tautological g eneralizations…when it is used to explain the incidence of coups.” For more on the different manners in which intrastate conf licts can be fought and the skillsets which they require, see Stathis N K alyvas and Laia Balcells, “Inter national System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Inter nal Conf lict,” American Political Science Review 104 3 (2010), 415-428; Evg eny Finkel, “T he Phoenix Effect of State Repression: Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust,” American Political Science Review 109 2 (2015), 340-342.

7 Tony Watson, “Professions and Professionalism: Should We Jump off the Bandwag on, Better to Study Where It Is Going?” Inter national Studies of Management & Or ganization 32 2 (2002), 93-105 ar rang ements,8 the continuation and advancement of combat-oriented infor mation and practices,9 and the dedication and cor responding discipline of individual combatants to an org anization eng ag ed in the manag ement of violence which they hold membership in.10

In the disser tation Or ganization and Community: The Deter minants of Insur gent Militar y Success, then-Ph.D. candidate Alec Worsnop categ orized five different thresholds of militar y effectiveness in non-state actors: (1) ar med g roups that disperse under combat conditions, (2) those that can car r y out basic coordinated maneuvers in a limited manner, (3) those able to out specific orders in combat situations without direct super vision of high-level commanders, (4) those capable of car r ying out coordinated militar y tasks, and (5) those that can readily car r y out high-coordinated tasks such as combined ar ms.11 While militar y professionalization cannot and should not be directly equated as a proxy for measuring militar y effectiveness, the long-ter m viability of ar med g roups facing Nazi occupiers could be conting ent on cer tain levels of org anization facilitated by professionalization. Perhaps

8 “Tr ue professions have codes of conduct, and the meaning and consequences of those codes are taught as par t of the for mal education of their members ” Rakesh Khurana and Nitin Nohria, “It’s Time to Make Manag ement a Tr ue Profession,” Har vard Business Review (2008), https://hbr org/2008/10/its-time-to-make-manag ementa-tr ue-profession

9 Román D. Or tiz, “Insurg ent Strategies in the Post-Cold War : the Case of the Revolutionar y Ar med Forces of Colombia " Studies in Conflict and Ter r orism 25 2 (2002), 136

10 Anthony King, “T he Persistence of Mass” in The Combat Soldier : Infantr y Tactics and Cohesion in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 220; Elizabeth J Wood, “T he Puzzle of Insurg ent Collective Action” in Insur gent Collective Action and Civil War in El-Salvador (Cambridg e: Cambridg e University Press, 2003), 18-19.

11 Alec Worsnop, “Introduction” in Or ganization and Community: The Deter minants of Insur gent Militar y Ef fectiveness, PhD diss (Massachusetts Institute of Technolog y, 2016), 15-18, https://dspace mit edu/handle/1721 1/107534 resistance movements are only capable of sur viving and resisting the T hird Reich’s relentless counterinsurg ency effor ts by utilizing developed command and control networks, unit-level leadership, guidelines and systems for personnel manag ement, instr uction in weapons and tactics, and shared identity among members.12 Only then could they conduct routine activities such as skir mishes, ambushes, sabotag e, and intellig ence collection.13 T his line of thought for ms the basis of the first conce pt proposed in this paper : resistance movements pursued militar y professionalization as a militar y strateg y pursuant to increasing combat effectiveness 14

T here is another compelling explanation for why resistance movements underwent militar y professionalization in World War II: political relations between resistance movements, the local communities they relied upon, and inter national actors. Works of scholarship in the “new institutionalism” methodological approach to sociolog y have established that org anizations often share similar str uctures and processes.15 Within this literature, the homog enization of rational org anizations is refer red to as institutional isomor phism.16 Coercive isomor phic chang e is

12 Worsnop, “A T heor y of Insurg ent Militar y Effectiveness” in Or ganization and Community: The Deter minants of Insur gent Militar y Ef fectiveness, 107-109.

13 Ibid., 83.

14 Scott Sigmund Gar tner, “Decision Making in War” in Strategic Assessment in War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 163 Gar tner defines militar y strateg y as a state’s implemented ideas pursuant to selected strategic g oals.

15 Ellen M Immergut, “T he T heoretical Core of the New Institutionalism," Politics & Society 26 1 (1998), 5-34; Walter W Powell and Paul J DiMag gio, eds , The New Institutionalism in Or ganizational Analysis (Chicag o: University of Chicag o Press, 1991). T he New Institutionalism is a methodological approach exploring how str uctures and nor ms constrain institutions

16 “Professions are subject to the same coercive and mimetic pressures as are org anizations.” Paul J. DiMag gio and Walter W. Powell, “T he Iron Cag e Revisited: Institutional Isomor phism and Collective Rationality in Org anizational Fields,” American Sociological Review 48 2 (1983), 147-158 the specific mechanism resulting from political pressures and, in the context of resistance during World War II, cultural expectations on what makes militaries legitimate.17 After all, local civilians and inter national actors’ decisions of which political actor to suppor t are shaped by their assessments of whether the resistance g roup will succeed.18 Given the challeng es posed by infor mation asymmetries in the fog of war, appearances and readily-obser ved org anizational behaviors can come to play the primar y role in infor ming such assessments, insofar as such obser vations confor m to their expectations of what a legitimate militar y is

The Yugoslav Par tisans, 1941-1945

For mally known as the National Liberation Ar my and the Par tisan Detachments of Yug oslavia, the Par tisans were an anti-fascist resistance movement in Axis-occupied Yug oslavia.19 T he movement, which eventually evolved into a larg e militar y force with a quasi-conventional capacity, was established through Josip Broz Tito’s leadership in the Communist Par ty of Yug oslavia during the initial stag es of the Ger man invasion and occupation.20 T hroughout their development, the Yug oslav Par tisans clearly demonstrated characteristics of militar y professionalization, e.g. its larg e composition and org anization of regular divisions and guer rilla detachments, standardized unifor ms, light and heavy weapons, and training—although the efficacy of the latter is contested in the context of female

17 DiMag gio and Powell, “T he Iron Cag e Revisited: Institutional Isomor phism and Collective Rationality in Org anizational Fields,” 147-150

18 Janet Lewis, “Civilians” in How Insur genc y Begins: Rebel Gr oup For mation in Uganda and Beyond (Cambridg e: Cambridg e University Press, 2020), 125-126; Eli Ber man et al , “Infor mation-Centric Insurg ency and Counterinsurg ency ” in Small Wars, Big Data: The Infor mation Revolution in Moder n Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 55-81.

19 T he Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Par tisan,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (2010), https://www britannica com/topic/Par tisan-Yug oslavian -militar y-force

20 Stoyan Pribichevich, “Tito,” Life Magaz ine (1944) combatants.21 T his behavior is consistent with the first proposed explanation of militar y strateg y. In fact, the timing of many of these chang es coincides with the ar rival of British militar y advisors facilitating the integ ration of Allied equipment and supplies, along with other for ms of militar y guidance.22

Notwithstanding the applicability of the militar y strateg y explanation, impor tant nuances in the Par tisans’ historical record lend itself well to the second explanation of political relations. In par ticular, politicized decisions with reg ards to women ser ved to reduce combat manpower and effectiveness in and of itself To facilitate the integ ration of women into the Par tisans’ frontline militar y forces, the resistance movement’s leadership had female combatants complete a “political-militar y” course, cementing Tito’s philosophy of political considerations as a fundamental aspect of tactics and operations.23 If the militar y strateg y explanation was the most consistent with the evolution of the Par tisans into a professionalized fighting force, then training would be focused on the application and manag ement of violence in an undiluted manner removed from political distractions. In addition, 1944-1945 saw the withdrawal of women from frontline positions during the Par tisans’ reorg anization into a more

21 Milovan Djilas, “In the Cauldron” in Wartime (New York: Harcour t Brace Jovanovich, 1977), 232 and 277; Jelena Batinić, “T he Heroic and the Mundane” in Women and Yugoslav Partisans (Cambridg e: Cambridg e University Press, 2015), 138-140.

22 William Jones, “Chapter X” in Twelve Months with Tito’s Partisans (Bedford: Bedford Books, 1946),77-84; “William Mor ris Jones, 1895-,” Hall of Valour - Temple Du Courag e, http://www.canadaveteranshallofvalour.com/JonesWM.h tm. For more on converg ence between the militar y development of states and non-state ar med g roups, see William B Quandt, Algerian Militar y Development: The Pr ofessionalization of a Guer rilla Ar my (Santa Monica: RAND Cor poration, 1972), 1, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0748913.pdf.

23 Batinić, “T he Heroic and the Mundane” in Women and Yugoslav Partisans, 139; Ger vasi, “Tito,” Collier’s Weekly; Djilas, “In the Cauldron” in Wartime, 222 conventional fighting force.24 T he withdrawal of women occur red despite recognition of their “excellent fighting qualities” and some of the heaviest fighting occur ring well into the latter sections of the war.25

T his shift can be attributed to political reasons, namely Tito’s desire to craft a homog enous, traditional nar rative that would neatly fit into the existing national identities of the prior Balkan States and the Kingdom of Yug oslavia.26 In conjunction, the political-militar y nature of training and the withdrawal of women from the frontlines demonstrate what were—in this case—inter twined yet competing mechanisms of militar y strateg y and political relations, along with their respective roles in encouraging different patter ns of org anizational development. T he course of events in Yug oslavia ser ves to highlight the Par tisans’ prioritization of political relations over militar y strateg y.

Another aspect of the Par tisans lending itself to the conce pt of political relations involves the rights afforded to lawful combatants in times of war. As mentioned earlier, the Par tisans beg an distributing standardized unifor ms in a similar manner to other sovereign states.27 T his desire to appear like a professional militar y was at least par tially tied to their claim that Par tisan soldiers were official bellig erents eng ag ed in war and thus entitled to the privileg es afforded to other prisoners of war 28 Ger man troops would

24 Batinić, “T he Heroic and the Mundane” in Women and Yugoslav Partisans, 158-164.

25 Jones, “Chapter X” in Twelve Months with Tito’s Partisans, 79; Wright, “Europe’s Response to Conquest: T he Resistance Movements” in The Ordeal of Total War, 1939-1945, 150-166.

26 Wolfg ang Hoepken, “War, Memor y, and Education in a Fragmented Society: T he Case of Yug oslavia,” East Eur opean Politics and Societies 13 1 (1999), 191-192

27 Djilas, “In the Cauldron” in Wartime, 232

28 “Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 27 July 1929,” Inter national Committee of the Red Cross, https://ihl-databases icrc org/applic/ihl/ihl nsf/States xs p?xp viewStates=XPag es NORMStatesPar ties&xp treat frequently apply the ag reed-upon rights of prisoners of war to captured troops from the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK); however, the same could not be said with their respective treatment toward captured Par tisans and other insurg ents operating in Easter n Europe.29 T his hor rific dynamic could be readily obser ved in Milovan Djilas’ recounting of Nazii Ger many’s Operation Schwarz, which saw the deliberate annihilation of thousands of wounded Par tisans and unar med medical workers left behind on the battlefield.30 While the leadership of the T hird Reich never came to acknowledg e the war rights of the Par tisans, with br utal fighting in Yug oslavia continuing well into 1945, appeals for inter national recognition were eventually met by the Allies in the middle of the war, thereby helping the establishment of Tito as the preeminent resistance leader in Yug oslavia.31

Free France and the French R esistance, 1940-1944

T he French Resistance was the collection of entities fighting Nazi authorities in occupied France and the collaborationist Vichy regime.32 A distinct yet related political entity was Free France, the g over nment-in-exile for med in June 1940 that claimed to be the ySelected=305 T he United States, United Kingdom, and Ger many all ratified the treaty in the first half of the 1930s.

29 “In time of war if one of the bellig erents is not a par ty to the Convention, its provisions shall, never theless, remain binding as between the bellig erents who are par ties thereto.” “Par t VIII : Execution of the Convention Section I : General Provisions - Ar t 82,” Inter national Committee of the Red Cross, https://ihl-databases icrc org/applic/ihl/ihl nsf/WebAR

T/305-430083?OpenDocument While the Kingdom of Yug oslavia did not ratify the 1929 Geneva Convention, a recognition by Nazi Ger many of war time hostilities ag ainst the Par tisans would have leg ally required them to comply with the provisions of the treaty

30 Djilas, “In the Cauldron” in Wartime, 263-271.

31 Winston Churchill, “Marshall Tito and His Gallant Bands,” Repor t to the House of Commons (1944)

32 Wright, “Europe’s Response to Conquest: T he Resistance Movements” in The Ordeal of Total War, 1939-1945, 144-150 legitimate g over nment of France. While the French Resistance had no for mal overarching leadership figure, the latter was led by General Charles de Gaule, who rejected the Franco-Ger man Ar mistice in a BBC radio broadcast and beg an working as a preeminent leader in the fight ag ainst the Axis powers.33 Relations between the Resistance and Free France were initially cold and disconnected, given the se paration of the English Channel and Free France’s removed nature from the day-to-day activities car ried out by many members of the Resistance 34 Pursuant to establishing a unified fighting entity, de Gaulle worked to overcome these initial challeng es and institute his leadership through fur ther radio broadcasts and discussions with Jean Moulin, the resistance leader neg otiating on behalf of elements of the French Resistance

De Gaulle’s push for a unified fighting movement was—in par t—based on a desire to cultivate inter national suppor t. Free France worked to chip away at Vichy France’s colonial possessions by means of co-option and coercion; de Gaulle also wanted to shift the US’ Roosevelt Administration from its diplomatic over tures to Vichy France pre-1942.35 In order to g enerate confidence in the Free French, de Gaulle’s Free France needed to fully embody its supposed status as the legitimate g over nment of France while also being recognized by French resistance fighters as such.

Pursuant to this objective, De Gaulle convinced Moulin to coordinate the disparate

34 H R Kedward, “Resistance and Refug e, 1942” and “Hunters and Hunted, Summer-Autumn 1943,” in In Search of the Maquis: Rural Resistance in Souther n France, 1942-1944 (Oxford: Oxford University press, 1994), 1-18 and 44-72; Wright, “Europe’s Response to Conquest: T he Resistance Movements” in The Ordeal of Total War, 1939-1945, 144-150.

35 Rober t Gale Woolber t, “Our Vichy Gamble by William L Lang er,” For eign Af fairs (1947), https://www foreignaffairs com/reviews/capsule-review /1947-07-01/our-vichy-g amble g roups of the French Resistance.36 Moulin parachuted into France in early 1942 and beg an working closely with Lucie and Raymond Aubrac of Libération, although his role of pulling resistance leaders tog ether came to a br utal end after his and Raymond’s capture in 1943.37 Resistance fighters were able to pull off a daring rescue operation of Raymond, and the Aubrac family was quickly exfiltrated to the UK, where Lucie Aubrac received an unexpected militar y citation.38 Citations and other for ms of incentives are a common characteristic of militar y professionalization.39 However, given that Free France did not have operational control over the conduct of Lucie Aubrac’s cover t activity, the awarding of said citation had little to no utility in improving the effectiveness of the Free French’s militar y forces 40 Rather than being ref lective of procedures aimed at increasing militar y effectiveness and unit cohesion on the battlefield, the professionalization exhibited through the official awarding of the citation should be understood as a means of building political relationships, i.e. the g over nment-in-exile recognizing and rewarding the activities of Libération as a g esture of par tnership.

Conclusion

Militar y professionalization in the Yug oslav Par tisans and Free France can be understood through two lenses: militar y strateg y and political relations. T he professionalization of Tito’s Par tisans had political aspects focused on female combatants and the r ules of war, and Aubrac’s anecdote ser ves to highlight militar y professionalization as a tool for unity and connection. Given the limited applicability of the militar y strateg y conce pt and the presence of significant political factors, both lenses are needed to more comprehensively evaluate the behavior and refor ms of resistance movements in Nazi-occupied Europe.

36 Jesse Beckett, “Jean Moulin Gave His Life for the French Resistance after refusing to give Intel to the “Butcher of Lyon”,” War Histor y Online (2021), https://www.warhistor yonline.com/war-ar ticles/jean-mo ulin-french-resistance-fighter.html?safari=1.

37 Lucie Aubrac, “Preface” in Outwitting the Gestapo (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 6

38 Aubrac, “Febr uar y 12, 1944” in Outwitting the Gestapo, 12.

39 Finkel, “T he Phoenix Effect of State Repression: Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust,” 340-341; Román D Or tiz, “Insurg ent Strategies in the Post-Cold War : the Case of the Revolutionar y Ar med Forces of Colombia." Studies in Conflict and Ter r orism 25.2 (2002), 136.

40 Clark R McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, “Group Polarization” in Friction: How Conflict Radicalizes Them and Us (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 109-124